Book Review: Last Night at the Lobster (Stewart O'Nan)

Perhaps it’s my own memories of my first job as a bus boy at a seafood restaurant in southern California. Or perhaps it was my two summers managing a kitchen at a summer camp. Whatever it is, I find stories centered around restaurant jobs endlessly fascinating. Don’t let your lack of membership in that quirky “club” repel you: Stewart O’Nan’s Last Night at the Lobster has wider appeal in its everyman hero, Manny, dedicated to his managerial responsibilities at a Red Lobster branch even though the corporation is shutting it down. Whether it’s for pride or because nothing else is really going right in his life, he wants this one last night to be a success. Naturally, he’s the only one who seems to care: the rest of his staff are focused entirely on getting their paychecks, goofing off, and just getting out of the kitchen before the oncoming snowstorm makes it impossible to traverse the New Britain, Connecticut, streets.

O’Nan thanks many people from a real Red Lobster at the end of this book, and it’s clear that they taught him well the Ways of the Lobster. His penchant for detail about every aspect of the job is part of what makes this story so fun. What makes it heartbreaking is Manny’s emotional balancing act as he tries to find how to stay in love with his pregnant girlfriend but how to confirm that he still holds some attraction for one of his waitresses. In the end, Manny walks away from the Red Lobster with something resembling a kind of triumph, though it’s hard not to feel this is a tragedy: The only thing in front of him as he trudges through the snow on his way home is a future at the next circle in Hell, Olive Garden

This is a perfect small book that feels bigger than its thickness, which speaks to O’Nan’s talent for concentrating characters and plot. The challenge of holding your attention—I mean, it’s a friggin’ restaurant, how much could happen?—is so strong that you end up not being able to put the book down just because a busload of senior citizens is pouring through the front door.